A Dynamic Leil HaSeder

There is an article in today's Jerusalem Post by Heb Keinon entitled Pessah passages

He writes that he misses the enthusiasm of his kids when they were younger. How they needed to be dragged away from the biur chametz bonfire on Erev Pesach and now they can't wait to leave before the pitta has even turned brown. He writes how he misses the time when every question his kids asked at the Seder could be answered with "to get the children to ask questions". He complains that his Seder no longer holds the magic and wonder it once had.

Maybe I'm stating the obvious but perhaps Herb should think about changing his Seder by learning new persushim that will be sufficiently deep and insightful enough to bring that magic and wonder back? Isn't that the message of The Arba Banim (The Four Sons)? To adapt your commentary to the level of your children?

There is a difference between following the family minhagim of the Seder every year and not making the effort to make the Haggadah fresh, exciting and dynamic each year. The Seder should develop at the same rate as your kids do. This involves having to learn new perushim every year and buying a new Haggadah to gain different incites. Sometimes the "she aino yodaiah lishal" the son who does not know how to ask, is actually the cleverest one there. He doesn't ask any questions because he thinks he knows all the answers or even worse, he assumes that his father has no other answers other than the ones he gave last year and the year before, especially if the answer is "to get the kids to ask questions"! Yes, that is what Chaz"al say but that doesn't mean that this is the answer you give the kids. They need to be answered with something meaningful.

Instead of being melancholy for the simple no effort Seder you used to have with your young children, try next year to be excited about having to prepare a Seder which is at a higher learning level with deeper perushim.

Why not try giving your grown up kids sections of the Haggadah for them to prepare. You might be amazed what perushim they come up with.

This is exactly what we did this year at our Seder. I asked my grown up kids to choose at least two sections from the Haggadah, coordinating with themselves and I would fill in the gaps. The perushim were lively and full of discussion. I didn't leave our 9 year old out of the picture, making sure to tell him lots of Leil HaSeder stories and jokes. We didn't start eating the Motzi Matza until 12:30am and missed the time for Afikoman by about an hour and a half. Never mind, if the kids want to take their time then why rush through the Seder? Think about it. The mitzvah of "vehigaditah Levincha" is a mitzvah Deorisah where as eating that last piece of matzah before chatzos is a minhag.

Nothing I've said is anything new. In fact the Haggadah itself summarises everything I've said in one simple sentence:

וַאֲפִילוּ כֻּלָנוּ חֲכָמִים, כֻּלָנוּ נְבוֹנִים, כֻּלָנוּ זְקֵנִים, כֻּלָנוּ יוֹדְעִים אֶת הַתּוֹרָה, מִצְוָה עָלֵינוּ לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם. וְכָל הַמַּרְבֶּה לְסַפֵּר בִּיצִיאַת מִצְרַיִם הֲרֵי זֶה מְשֻׁבָּח

"And even if all of us were wise, all men of understanding, all elderly, all of us knowing the Torah, there is still a Mitzvah upon us to tell about the Exodus from Egypt. And whoever elaborates on it is praiseworthy."

Chareidi or religious state schools. Who has it right?

Every now and again you see an article in either YNET or The Jerusalem Post about a child from a Sefardi family whose parents have sent him/her to a Chareidi Ashkenazi school because they believe that the standard of Torah education is higher there. The parents complain that the school gives priority to Ashkenazi children, only allowing a few Sefardi kids a place. Then if the child is selected, the parents complain that the Ashkenazi school is brainwashing their child with Ashkenazi traditions, customs and prayer. Predictably, the article is always biased in favour of the parents because perceived racism and anti-Chareidi articles make for good page hits and talkbacks.

One could argue that if the parents choose to send their child to a school which they know in advance teaches according to the Ashkenazi tradition then they really should not complain. The article though always argues that good schooling should be open to everyone and that it is the school that should stop being exclusively Ashkenazi. The climax of the article is always that giving priority to Ashkenazi children is racist. No doubt the author then sits back and waits for the flood of anti-Chareidi talkbacks to come in. Job well done. Pat on the back.

Not only are they wrong but they miss the real story which is the misguided, mistaken and destructive practice of the State Religious Zionist (Mamlachti Dati) schools in Israel.

Torah Judaism teaches us to follow the traditions and customs of our fathers, to know who we are and where we have come from. Every Jewish community should be proud of who they are and their unique traditions. Every tradition should be respected. We are not here to make a soup from our kids in Israel, to be watered down to a generic form of Jewish practice, but a salad bowl of beautiful contrasts and flavours. The State religious Zionist schools have got it tragically wrong. They attempt to teach halacha (Jewish law) according to all minhagim (customs) and have mandatory common tephila (morning prayer) for all kids using some kind of "nusach Achid", a generic prayer ritual.

In many towns (including my own), the majority of kids who go to the State Religious schools are from Sefardi backgrounds. Inevitably, due to force of numbers and despite the supposed practiced "nusach Achid", the Ashkenazi minority are forced to submit to the tunes of Sefardi prayer and order of prayer according to Sefardi traditions and customs.

My kids complain bitterly about this but when I have spoken to the school, my words have fallen on deaf ears. In my experience, any attempt by Ashkenazi parents to suggest parallel Ashkenazi minyanim (services) are rejected out right. Any suggestion to be excused from the school minyan and to pray with their father in his shul in the mornings is likewise rejected!

It is not just tephila where the problem exists. My daughter came home a few months ago and told me that her Halacha Rav at school (who is Sefardi) had told her that Ashkenazim were not allowed to use teabags on Shabbat. She was very upset at the thought that we may have been performing malacha on Shabbat all these years. I calmed her down and opened up " Shemiras Shabbos Kehilchosoh" by Rav Yehoshua Yeshaya Neuwirth and showed her that we are allowed to use teabags on Shabbat from a kli shlishi which is indeed what we do. She was obviously greatly relieved. This is just one example of many.

Unlike all other religions which begin with a supposed revelation by a single person or a small group, Judaism claims that an entire people of some 3 million men women and children experienced Hakodesh Baruch Hu giving the Torah to the Jewish people. All other religions must by necessity begin with a leap of faith. You either believe that what this individual said he witnessed is the truth or not.

In total contrast, the entire Jewish people witnessed the same events from the 10 plagues to the Splitting of the Reed Sea to Har Sinai. We were told by Hashem to pass the record of this experience onto the next generation. This is the mitzvah of "Vehigadita Levincha" in Shemos 13:8 and is unquestionable proof of the truth of Hashem's Torah. This transfer from generation to generation is only possible with the use of a family tradition joining all the generations together.

This is why Leil HaSeder is so important and also answers an often asked question. Why are we so obsessed by so many family traditions on Pesach, many of them seemingly without reason? The answer is that these family minhagim connects us to all previous generations of our family. Just as our ancestor who stood on Har Sinai and heard Hashem's voice, passed down Torah, halacha and minhagim and the revelation experience to his children, so we continue that chain on Leil HaSeder.

This chain is made up of links such as the way we pray, the nigunim (tunes) we sing and the minhagim we observe.

It tears my kishkes inside out to think that families of generations of Torah and mitzvos observant Jews who have kept the light of Torah alive through the worst that the golus has thrown at them, including pogroms, forced conversions and forced deportations and kept loyal to Hashem by keeping their traditions and customs, finally come home to Eretz Yisrael only to have these schools expunge the very thing that has kept us all alive for 2,000 years and that which defines who we are.

Please don't think that this is an exclusively Ashkenazi war. I was speaking to a work colleague of mine who is Sefardia. She was telling me that she went to a State Religious school in the 1980s in Yerushalayim where the majority of teachers and kids happened to be Ashkenazi. To this day she feels uncomfortable praying Friday night in her grandfather's beit-knesset. She prefers the Ashkenazi services. She get's confused as to what is exclusively Ashkenazi Jewish law or customs or that which applies for all Jews because of what she was taught in school. She never learnt the Jewish law and customs exclusive to her family. She told me that she sends her kids to a Sefardi Chareidi school, despite having Zionist ideology, because of this.

These schools are unwittingly tearing at the very fabric of Judaism. If parents wish to send their kids to Zionist religious schools then it is the responsibility of parents to compensate for the school's error and make sure that at least on Shabbos, father and son, mother and daughter daven together in a shul true to their nusach.